Arts & Entertainment

Best Inexplicable Art Dallas 2005 - The Marble Cows at Crow Lake

Like so many things associated with the Trinity River, Trammell Crow Lake Park, between the levees on Sylvan Avenue, is mostly about potential. The parking lot is littered, the soccer fields neglected. The curvilinear artificial lake is mostly mud (from which protrudes a Dallas Morning News vending machine). But with a little sprucing up, this scene could be positively idyllic. A concrete running path around the lake leads to a shady tree and--what the? Are those cows? Yes, this abandoned attempt at pastoral bliss includes a scattering of life-size marble cows, variously standing and lying in the shade with the Dallas skyline behind them. One has a shattered horn, while others are scrawled with graffiti (cow-tagging, anyone?). Unlike their lean, charging bronze counterparts adjacent to City Hall, these bovines appear well-fed and placid, pondering with dignified melan-cow-ly the park that might have been.